Justin Langer quits as coach of Australian cricket team

Australian cricket coach Justin Langer has turned down an insulting contract offer, opting instead to quit and walk away.

Australian men's cricket coach Justin Langer is walking away.

Ricky Ponting has labelled the treatment of Justin Langer by Cricket Australia “almost embarrassing” after the coach rejected an insulting contract extension offer, opting instead to resign and walk away.

The former captain said the complaints of “a few” people in the team and some of the staff had forced the situation.

“It is a really sad day as far as Australian cricket is concerned and if you look back it has been a really poor six months on the whole in the way that Cricket Australia has handled some of the better people in the Australian cricket — Justin Langer and Tim Paine — and I think it’s been almost embarrassing the way they have handled those two cases,” Ponting said.

The Australian revealed on Saturday that Langer would walk away following the resolution at Friday’s board meeting.

Cricket Australia is yet to offer a statement but Ponting was on ABC radio in Melbourne soon after the news broke.

“He mustn’t have had the full backing of the board,” the former team mate of Langer said. “Me knowing Justin the way that I do, he was very keen to continue in the role, as he should have been after what’s been the best coaching period of his international career having just won the T20 World Cup and then the 4-0 result in the Ashes.

“It seems like a very strange time for a coach to be departing.

“Reading the tea leaves it sounds like a few — and as he says to me a small group in the playing group and a couple of other staff around the team — haven’t entirely loved the way he has gone about it.

“That’s been enough to force a man who has put his life and heart and soul into Australian cricket and done a sensational job at turning around the culture and the way the Australian team has been looked at in the last few years to push him out of the job.”

Ponting was asked if Cummins was part of the “small group of players” and if he was disappointed by that.

“I sort of am because Justin is a great mate of mine and I know how passionate he is about the Australian coaching job and that he wanted to continue on and be the best coach and have the best cricket team in the world,” he said.

Marnus Labuschagne and Justin Langer in the nets.

“I think Pat also has been put in a difficult situation as captain, if it’s not just him and it is other players coming to him and letting him know that maybe they think Justin is not the right man then I think that puts Pat in a difficult position as well,” he said.

Ponting said Cummins’ lack of support in public for an extension may have been because he knew “this day was coming”.

“If he had got on the front foot and endorsed Justin they would have been in a position to move him on,” he said. “I am close to Justin, we are like brothers but I have got too heavily involved in this, as much as giving him a pat on the back and put an arm around him here and there, there was no way I could change the way this was heading.

“What’s happened today I’ve felt was coming for quite a while, even looking back before the T20 World Cup there was a lot of speculation there.”

The truth is that Langer had lost the support of senior players who maintain their affection for the passionate leader

Ponting said during his time as a player the team or captain never tried to influence board decisions around coaching or appointments.

He said there had been a power shift and it is partly created by most of the players being paid more than the head coach.

A dejected Langer opted to quit Australian cricket having failed to be given the respect or support he deserved as he sought an extension to his coaching contract.

Langer was offered an extension yesterday but turned it down.

The offer was understood to be the barest of minimums and an insult to the coach who resolved to walk away if that was all the administration thought of his efforts.

The 51-year-old who answered the team’s call in its hour of need following the sandpaper scandal had just finished a period in which the teams had won the T20 World Cup for the first time and the Ashes 4-0.

Langer’s management confirmed his exit.

“DSEG confirms that our client Justin Langer has this morning tendered his resignation as coach of the Australian mens cricket team,” it said in a statement.

“The resignation follows a meeting with Cricket Australia last evening. The resignation is effective immediately.”

The truth is that Langer had lost the support of senior players who maintain their affection for the passionate leader but had been worn down by his obsession with detail and discipline in the early years _ they found his mood swings similarly wearing.

The hardest part of the situation to reconcile is that Langer had responded to complaints from the leadership group and taken a back seat in recent series.

Former Australian skipper Ricky Ponting.

Having finally been given a team of support coaches of his choice, he ceded control to them, but senior players then argued that the job could be done by Andrew McDonald his deputy.

Both Pat Cummins and Aaron Finch were consulted by chief executive Nick Hockley and manager of teams Ben Oliver.

They met with Langer on Friday and leaked details of the meeting included them discussing the length of contract should Langer continue when his deal runs out mid year.

A lack of leadership from above and the damning silence of the team led Langer to decide he will walk away on the eve of a board meeting where his future was to be decided.

Langer, a gritty Western Australian batter, played 105 Tests and 360 first class matches in an era when Australian cricket was at its strongest. Perhaps not as talented as those around him, he achieved greatness through sheer will power and hard work.